By Chris Udochukwu
Abuja (Precise Post) – The federal government delegation led by the Chief of Staff to the President, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari and the Minister for Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige are scheduled to meet with striking Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) today (Thursday) with the view to finding a way to end the lingering strike action.
A member of ASUU, University of Abuja chapter, confirmed the development.
The meeting, which was scheduled to be held at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja, is aimed at finding a solution to the lingering strike by the university lecturers.
It was also gathered that the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU) and other registered trade unions in Nigerian universities would be participating in the meeting.
Recall that ASUU, on Monday, extended its ongoing roll-over strike which commenced on February 14, by another three months.
Its demands include the funding of the revitalisation of public universities, the Earned Academic Allowances, the University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS) and promotion arrears.
Others include the renegotiation and implementation of 2009 ASUU-FG Agreement and the inconsistency in Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System.
Precise Post recalls that two days ago, President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan promised that the Senate will intervene in the lingering dispute between the Federal government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) by bringing back the two parties to the negotiation table.
Lawan made the promise to the officials of the National Association of Nigerian Students(NANS) who were led to his office by a concerned Methodist Bishop, Dr. Sunday Ndukwo Onuoha.
The NANS President, Sunday Asefon who spoke for his other colleagues lamented their continued stay at home and disruption of their academic programme and urged the Senate President to intervene in the dispute between the Federal government and the University teachers.
Responding, the Senate President expressed unhappiness about the turn of events, recalling that the Senate had intervened in the past before everything broke down again.
He however promised that the Senate would wade in again and expressed optimism that the issues would soon be resolved.
